


In Name

by JazzRaft



Series: In Weakness & In Strength [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen, Injury, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-11 04:51:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11707182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: Prompto saves Cor from a crippling blow. And Cor kind of hates it because he should have never had to get hurt for him in the first place.





	In Name

Cor marched into the valley ready to kill a Bandersnatch. At least then, he’d feel mildly productive.

He’d said he’d join the boys across the no man’s land of Keycatrich Trench, not expecting Noctis to turn the party completely around and declaring that sleep was a greater priority than the ancient sword left in the tomb by his ancestors for his inheritance and to pass down power of untold significance in order to save the kingdom.

It was with great reluctance that Cor followed them to the nearest haven, only conceding when a cursory glance over the group proved that Noctis wasn’t just avoiding his responsibilities and had just cause in settling down to camp. The boys were worn out, dressed in dirt and fatigue. Ignis was bug-eyed from watching out for sneak attacks too long; Gladiolus was starting to trip over his own feet and pretending that it never happened; and Prompto had an uncharacteristic scowl twisting down his lips, the most telling hint that something was wrong.

A hearty meal spent being pestered with stories about his youth and his victories during the war, then they were dead on arrival to the sleeping bags in the tent. Cor sat watch outside, eyeing the entrance to the Trench in the distance. Fine, they’d needed their rest – that was clear to Cor now, musing over the boys’ exhaustion in the silence beneath the stars. He wordlessly praised Noctis his initiative in taking them back to camp. The Trench and its tomb would still be there at dawn, and they would take it with more ease when they were all rested and fed.

But then he was spirited off to the nearest outpost. It was a resupply run, Ignis said. They were low on potions or ethers or everything, it seemed. Better safe than sorry, yeah, he got that. But it felt like they were at the store for _hours_. Ignis systematically checked every label on everything and plotted out the precise calculations between purchases and funds. Prompto was a distractible chocobo flitting between the shelves, dragging Noctis along to loiter at magazine racks or ogle at junk food.

Cor feigned patience as best he could, standing by the Regalia and scanning the parking lot for threats to bide his time waiting. They needed this sense of normalcy, he reminded himself. They’d all been through a lot and they were just kids, truly. Noctis and Prompto, especially. His impatience aside, it was nice to see the both of them laughing together through the store window. It was nice to see how animated they acted around each other after he’d seen them both at their most sullen and stationary as children.

Prompto was like another person compared to the shivering, scared little boy he remembered. He was a lively, gangly young man, eyes wide by default and even wider through the lens of his camera. He embraced the world more than he shied away from it now, seeking things out rather than hiding away from them. Cor saw his perseverance and his determination to overcome his own faults while overseeing his training for the Crownsguard. He saw it when, instead of speeding back to Keycatrich Trench to reclaim the Prince’s birthright, they volunteered for a hunt and cruised along the dusty Leiden roads to slay sabertusks.

His practice had paid off in bullseyes and quick thinking, though still rough around the edges. There was a trademark wildness to Prompto’s technique that he’d never managed to refine in training. Watching it applied to a true danger, Cor saw that, yes, it was a gamble to be sliding and rolling beneath claws and around teeth, but the pay-off when the odds were in his favor were worth the risk. It still worried Cor, made him feel ten times older than he was when his chest seized at every missed shot and clumsy shuffle of feet trying to compensate for it. But he was a true fighter, and all fighters took rest. It was just more apparent in Prompto.

So, they killed some sabertusks. That was a nice warm-up, Cor excused. But then, they _still_ avoided the Trench. They delivered the bounty on the sabertusks, rented some chocobos, and went gallivanting across the scrublands in search of Cor didn’t even know what. Dave needed dog tags, Cindy needed motor oil, Sania needed frogs; someone needed something somewhere in the world and Noctis seemed determined to please every last one of them.

By the time they stumbled into the hidden valley and caught the eye of a territorial Bandersnatch, Cor was too ready to strangle the nearest twenty-something-year-old not to barge right in and murder the monster instead. Between digging through dead leaves for shiny objects and regressing to the state of a ten-year-old bouncing after multi-colored amphibians, all to detour the reality that there was a supernatural blade waiting to be retrieved and in danger of being stolen by those undeserving of it, this Bandersnatch deserved his wrath.

Four shouts of dissent followed Cor into the valley before four frenzied sets of feet splashed through the remnant puddles of past rain in his wake. The Bandersnatch only _looked_ more daunting than it was. It was by no means a difficult undertaking, but it did demand a more tactful approach than Cor had the patience to plot.

And it cost him.

“Look out!”

The warning came too late for Cor to react in time, instead getting shoved away from the tail swinging towards his hips. He would have preferred the broken bone to the shattering cry and heavy thump of a body colliding with the hard, sandy floor of the valley.

“Prompto!” he heard Noctis scream from across the dusty bowl, followed by the mystical crash of a vengeful warpstrike and the bandersnatch’s hateful howl.

Cor bolted to rescue Prompto, closer than the other three. The boy scrabbled across the dirt on shaking hands and feet to get clear of the flailing limbs of the beast and its rancid breath. His breathing came in a heavy wheeze, an arm clutched across his ribs where the blow had connected. It made Cor’s stomach curdle, but not nearly as badly as the sweat-plastered smile and wavering blue eyes did.

“Damn, heroics aren’t nearly as glamorous as they look in the movies,” he laughed, wincing at the way the sound bobbed his ribs.

Cor grit his teeth and cracked open a potion. It wasn’t enough to heal Prompto entirely, giving him just enough of a second wind to the last the rest of the fight. Cor stuck close by him after that, not letting him out of his sight until the final blow was struck. Gladiolus leapt into the air and hammered his sword down on to the bandersnatch’s skull. It died with an acidic howl and then the valley was silent, save for the labored breaths of the party dropping hard and fast through split lips.

It was back to camp after that, sloughing off dirt and sweat in the nearby stream, nursing potions over cuts and bruises and carefully considering the menu to promote healing for the evening. Cor tended to the more severe injury on Prompto himself, seizing the old-fashioned route of a cold compress and a tightly applied bandage.

Prompto was an obedient patient. Didn’t flinch or complain, just bit his lip and breathed through his nose if it hurt. Snapped a joke here and there if it was too overwhelming to breathe and forcing himself to talk meant that he had to. Couldn’t speak if you weren’t breathing. When he could breathe in silence, he scrolled through his camera to distract himself. Cor stayed quiet. Let him cope in his way while Cor coped in his own, silently scolding himself for the rare moment of recklessness that got them into this.

It bothered him, how the tension of the kingdom was affecting his better judgment. It bothered him nearly as much as just how similar Prompto’s recklessness had been. When the bulk of bandaging up his side was done, Cor’s arms stilled across his chest, eyes set on Prompto, and in a quiet voice, he asked.

“Why did you do that?”

Prompto blinked up at him, a puzzled pout to his lips. “Do what? Take this?” He turned the camera up to indicate a photo of Gladiolus bowling his shield through a line of sabertusks.

Cor narrowed his gaze. It conveyed his message clear enough. Prompto lowered the camera and let the screen go dark, twirling a finger around the strap. “You were gonna get hurt. You taught me – well, everyone in Crownsguard training – that it’s our job to put other people first, right? Look out for our brothers, die for the Crown, honor, sacrifice, all that.”

He laughed, tangled in nervousness and self-deprecation. His eyes flitted back and forth between Cor and the stone ground underfoot, tracing the whisper-blue runes carved into the rock when he couldn’t hold the Marshal’s gaze. Cor remained silent, considering him, watching tension build in his narrow shoulders and a self-conscious flush sprinkle beneath his freckles the longer he stared. Cor had learned in his irritatingly long life – outliving kings that he should have died for before they did – that an unblinking stare could interrogate the truth out of a person quicker than a sentence in the Citadel’s dungeons ever could.

“It was you or me, ya’know?” Prompto confessed, shrugging. “It was smarter to make sure you didn’t get hurt. Strategy, r-right? We need you to help us into the tomb. If you’re out of commission, that sets us all back. It doesn’t matter if I’m down for the count. You’re more valuable. You’ve got the experience, the strength, the smarts, and everything. You could all make it into the tomb way easier without me. Besides, I’m a total baby in the dark!”

He laughed it off, reaching up to rub the back of his neck and wincing when lifting his arm stretched the bruised muscles in his side. Cor watched him for a little longer, mulling over every syllable of his excuse. It was difficult to harden himself to that. Difficult not to soften and sigh and realize that, as much as he had changed and evolved and become stronger in skill and spirit alike, there were still shreds of the kid Cor had first met, sullen and staring blankly at the toes of his shoes, unwelcome and unloved in a strange city.

Prompto picked at the dirt in the soles of his boots to give his hands something to do. Cor unwound the tight clasp of his limbs to sit down beside him, balancing Kotetsu across his knees, as careful with the sword as he was with his words.

“It’s not always the strongest or the wisest that can turn the tide of a battle. It’s not one over the other that wins a fight. Not when you’re in a team like this.” He nodded to his three comrades – Ignis fussing over a vegetable stew and batting a protesting Noctis away, Gladiolus barring the Prince’s efforts in sabotage with a comfortable arm locked around his neck. “Balance is what wins a fight. You’re all strong, just not in the same ways. Physical power or the number of victories a person has, doesn’t make them more valuable than a person without them. There is no score-keeping in war. A general can’t lead an army without soldiers there to win his battles. A title doesn’t make a person more valuable than anyone else in the world.”

“I don’t know,” Prompto mumbled, pursing his lips in thought. “I’m not a Crownsguard. But Gladio and Iggy are. You are. And Noct’s… Noct. He’s the Prince, you’re the Marshal, Gladio’s the Shield, and you’re all so much more than I could ever hope to be.”

“You _are_ a Crownsguard, Prompto. It doesn’t take a badge or a certificate to give you that duty. People are made Crownsguard by their own honor, by their own commitment, and their strength of _will_ to persevere and defend what matters. Not their strength of arms. You may not have gotten the ceremony or an expensive piece of paper to go with it, but you’re a Crownsguard. More importantly, you’re better than a Crownsguard.”

Prompto snorted, unconvinced, but fidgeting a little less, turning his ear a little more towards Cor’s words. Like he _wanted_ to be convinced, wanted to believe that he could be more than a label. More than pomp and circumstance and useless platitudes made for people watching TV more than for constructing a force for a greater cause.

“Don’t sell yourself so short, kid. I can’t tell you your own worth. That’s something you have to find for yourself. But you need to look further than the names, past the swords and the shields. And you need to stay alive to look. That’s an order. Got it?”

Prompto looked taken aback by the severity of the order, blinking rapidly as he processed it. Then, he straightened as best he could with wounded bones, set his mouth in a firm line, and nodded.

“Y-Yessir!”


End file.
